Letter to The Times 14th April

Your report and comment (14th April) on maternity services in the outer south east London NHS is well-timed, coming the week after a three-month consultation ("A Picture of Health") on said services in the area comes to an end. With executives at one of the hospitals that is not targeted to lose its maternity services coming out in favour of the option that reduces four maternity units to two, one has to ask, what's in it for them? With the consultation report stressing, on one hand, the aim of having patient services nearer home, whilst on the other hand recommending losing one or two maternity units, the only way the report suggests that these two "ideals" may both be met is by offering more home births as if that's going to free up staff.

Furthermore, when the, albeit small, percentage of home births become an emergency, and the mother-to-be has to be ferried by ambulance to an A & E department, only to find that they have gone the same way as the maternity units, one is left feeling that the "Picture" is becoming very unhealthy indeed.